The Banquet (Il Convito) eBook

CHAPTER XII.

In the first chapter of this treatise the reason which
moved me to this Song is so fully discussed that it
is no longer necessary to discuss it further, for
one can easily enough recall to mind what has been
said in this exposition: and therefore, following
the divisions made for the Literal meaning, I shall
run through the Song, turning back to the sense of
the letter where it may be needful. I say, “Love,
reasoning of my Lady in my mind.” By Love
I mean the labour and pains I took to acquire the
love of this Lady. If one wishes to know what
labour, it can be here considered in two ways.
There is one study which leads the man to the daily
use of Art and Science; there is another study which
he will employ in the acquired use. The first
is that which I call Love, which fills my mind continually
with new and most exalted ideas of this Lady:
even as the anxious pains which one takes to acquire
a friendship are wont to do; for, when desiring that
friendship, a man is wont to take anxious thought concerning
it. This is that study and that affection which
usually precedes in men the begetting of the friendship,
when already on one side Love is born, and desires
and strives that it may be on the other; for, as is
said above, Philosophy is born when the Soul and Wisdom
have become friends, so that the one is loved by the
other.

Neither is it again needful to discuss that first
stanza in the present explanation, which was reasoned
out as the Proem in the Literal exposition; since,
from the first argument thereof, it is easy enough
to make out the meaning in this the second one.

We may proceed, then, to the second part, which begins
the treatise, and to that place where I say, “The
Sun sees not in travel round the Earth.”
Here it is to be known that as, when discoursing of
a sensible thing, one handles it suitably by means
of an insensible thing, so of an intelligible thing,
one fitly argues by means of an unintelligible.
In the Literal sense one speaks of the Sun as a substantial
and sensible body; so now it is fit, by image of the
Sun, to discourse of the Spiritual and Unintelligible,
that is, God.

There is no visible thing in all the world more worthy
to serve as a type of God than the Sun, which illuminates
with visible light itself first, and then all the
celestial and elemental bodies. Thus, God illuminates
Himself first with intellectual light, and then the
celestial and other intelligible beings. The Sun
vivifies all things with his heat, and if anything
is destroyed thereby, it is not by the intention of
the cause, but it is an accidental effect: thus
God vivifies all things in His Goodness, and, if any
suffer evil, it is not by the Divine intention, but
the effect is accidental. For, if God made the
Angels good and evil, He did not make both by intention,
but He made the good only; there followed afterwards,
beyond His intention, the wickedness of the evil ones;